Gratitude 2

I have a Secret Weapon that helps with gratitude practice.  I learned it from the amazing and talented Bronwyn Emery of Live. Write. Be.

(This is a plug for Bronwyn and her coaching services.  She is an awesome and talented person with a gift for drawing good work out of people who write.  Check out what she has to offer here.)

 

If gratitude practice in the classical sense doesn’t work, may I recommend What Went Well and Why.  Here’s how it works.  Every day, you notice three things that went well and you write them down and then you also write down why they went well.  The trick is that you have to say what you did to make that thing go well.

 

Let me give an example.  Let’s say you notice that you had a fabulous workout.  That went well.  When it comes to why, you don’t get to say it was because your trainer is amazing.  You need to look at what you did and maybe you’ll write that it went well because you actually showed up instead of crawling back in bed or because you have finally figured out how to breathe and do pushups at the same time or because you didn’t let how mad you were at your boss derail you, but in fact used the rage as power.

 

What I like about this practice is that not only does it train us to notice the good stuff like gratitude does, but it also builds a sense of agency in us.  Things went well and it wasn’t all blind luck or other people being fabulous, but rather because we did stuff.

 

Try it!